


Attachment Issues

by MandaBear



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Tentacle Cuddles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-15 03:30:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20859509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MandaBear/pseuds/MandaBear
Summary: "Sammy.""Yeah Dean?""What does that look like to you.""Pretty sure it looks like a baby half human, half octopus sea creature, Dean.""Damn. That's what I'm seeing too."





	Attachment Issues

**Author's Note:**

> Welp. I guess I'm doing a thing here. Trying. Trying a thing. I'm pretty sure I'm at least 2 seasons behind the show at this point in time. I think I'm afraid to go back. I've read some wonderful fic and don't want to...overwrite the memories, maybe?

The whole thing had been a clusterfuck from the beginning. 

They had been heading back to the bunker after a grueling case that had turned out to be a psychic vampire. Both Dean and Sam had never even stumbled across the possibility in any of the lore, including the massive archives in the Men of Letters library. They would have been withered husks on the pavement if not for Castiel.

Dean was determinedly not thinking about Cas.

Sammy was sacked out in the backseat. Dean had been driving for hours. A knife of pain was pulsing into the back of his left eye. His jaw was clenched, radiating pain into both temples. He fought back yet another yawn and consciously loosened his grip on Baby's steering wheel. Again. 

Every part of Dean's attention was willfully bent toward driving well and staying awake. He was NOT thinking about Castiel. He wasn't.

The steering wheel cracked ominously beneath his bloodless fingers. Dean swore and relaxed his grip yet again.

A green highway sign caught his attention. Dean glanced at the gas gauge and checked the time. He flipped the turn signal. He didn't think about Cas. Nope. He was a perfect driver, perfectly easing to a perfect stop at the fuel pump. He was far too focused on each separate task involved in driving to let even one single sliver of attention stray in Castiel's direction.

Sam snorted and sat up when the car shut off. Dean left him to get sorted out while he hit the restroom.

"I gotta sleep, man," Dean was saying as he returned to the impala. He was rubbing his left eye, holding back a groan as each twist of knuckle spiked into his skull.

"Me too. Let's stop here. I'm too tired to even eat."

"Holy shit, why didn't you say something?" Dean was teasing, and Sam knew it. He shot Dean a bitch face anyway. Dean snorted.

Within a half hour they were settled into a room at the motel next door to the dinky gas station. They had booked, entered, evaluated, and unpacked in the same familiar dance they had been following for years. It wouldn't do to miss a step. Accidentally leaving gear in the car was a mistake only careless hunters made.

Sam was already snoring. He'd kicked off his steel toed work boots but that was all. He was sprawled on top of the stained bedspread on his stomach, still fully clothed, socked feet hanging off the bed directly over the discarded boots.

Dean laid awake. His mind wouldn't quiet. His thoughts kept turning toward Castiel.

Cas with his Goddamn trench coat. His stupid tie. His fucking messy hair. Those fucking eyes! Fuck!

Dean sat up with a gasp. He was having trouble breathing again.

Oh good. Another panic attack. His favorite.

Okey-dokey. Great time for a walk

It wasn't even dark yet. Damn, that vamp had seriously messed them up. Dean checked himself for wallet, weapons, phone, and keys before pulling the door shut behind him. Sam hadn't moved. He remembered Cas laying his hands on Sammy. He remembered the look on Cas's face. He remembered the way Cas had said, "he'll be all right, Dean," as there was a quick flash of grace and healing. Dean had breathed it in, relishing the hint of ozone.

He wasn't thinking of Cas. Nope. Not at all. He was very definitely not thinking about the look in Castiel's eyes, or the way he had stepped close.

The way he had stared. The intensity. The way his hand twitched, like he might have been meaning to lift it up, rest it on Dean's shoulder.

No! Enough! New subject!

Dean mentally recited the words to his favorite Zeppelin songs while trying to walk silently along the gravel of the walking path. His toes cramped up at first, proving a satisfying distraction. 

He and Sam had been driving an old coastal highway. The area was sparsely populated. A newly built freeway nearby had taken over traffic, and the road along this steep, rocky stretch of shore had fallen into disrepair. The sky was a deep blue gray, heavy and thick with gray clouds. The surf was muted. He felt like he could be the last man on earth. Twenty minutes along the rocky sand and he still hadn’t seen another person, or even a footprint. It felt nice to be alone.

Just as he formed that internal thought, he heard something. Of course there’s always something, Dean thought. He wasn’t scared. Not yet.

The next sound, louder, closer, weirder, set him on high alert. He froze, blood singing, ears pricked. His was up on the balls of his feet, knees slightly bent. Both hands were poised over various weapons without conscious thought.

“Who’s there!” Dean called gruffly.

There was no response.

Dean mentally replayed the noises he had heard, trying to identify the cause. His mind flicked over various possibilities, settled on none. His sharp eyes found nothing and no one nearby. What the hell?

There! A sound, right on top of him! Dean whipped around. There was nothing there.

And then a sudden clamping pressure around his ankle, and pulling, and lifting, and he was falling. Dean landed hard on his ass and back, weapons flying right out of his hands. He struggled to breathe. He was a statue of confusion and pain, flat on his back in the wet sand.

What. The fuck. 

And was that – no, it couldn't be. Except that it was. Giggling.

It wasn’t the psychotic giggling of a demon or other supernatural creature. It sounded like a laughing baby. 

What?!

There was a scrambling weight on his legs, crawling upward. Dean stared in breathless shock and horror. It felt like snakes. It looked like seaweed. Sentient, mobile seaweed around a giggling face. Swarming him. Carrying? No. Attached? Maybe? It looked like a cherubic human child in the middle of a glistening blob of kelp or snakes. A toddler being consumed by a jellyfish? An alien blob from outer space, halfway through eating an oddly unaffected human kid?

The kid had arms, too. Cute chubby puffy baby fat arms. They were reaching for Dean. He was reaching back, instinctually. His internal hunter voice cursed his trusting foolishness. His regular human protective instincts had taken over. There was a confused, half formed idea that he needed to pry the kid free from a space blob jellyfish that was trying to digest it, sarlacc style.

The kid was hugging him, squeezing. Dean was engulfed. The baby was laughing. Dean was screaming. The blob thing parts were wrapping around him, squeezing tighter and tighter. His frantic fingers were searching for a seam or lip or opening of some sort. And the kid was giggling and squirming… Just like…

“What the hell?” Dean’s words were choked, breathless. Disbelieving.

The kid was acting like Dean was tickling his sides. His smooth, thick, damp, muscular sides that were also…tentacles?

“What – how? You’re like baby Ursula?” Dean wheezed out. The octo-kid laughed again. He rearranged his grip on Dean again and SQUEEZED.

“Stop!”

The kid froze. His lip trembled. Big fat tears rolled down his cheeks and he let out a wail.

“No, wait,” Dean said. “It’s okay! Don’t cry!” The cephalo-toddler buried his wet face against Dean’s shoulder. Dean made shushing and soothing noises while he rubbed the oddly textured skin on the kid’s back. “I just can’t breathe when you squeeze me like that, little mermaid boy, okay?”

The boy loosened up just enough to lean back and look up at Dean. He rubbed the tears from his face. 

The kid was fucking adorable.

Was this some sort of weird trap? A beautiful kid-o-pus baby as bait while the mama sea creature circled around to sink wicked teeth into the unsuspecting human’s neck from behind? Dean glanced around quickly but there was no sign of anything, aside from his blade to his left, sticking out of the sand. And his gun, to his right, getting a lovely seawater bath. Dammit. The salt had surely ruined all the spells on his ammo.

The kid yawned, revealing several gleaming nubs of pointed baby teeth. They looked sharp as needles. The baby, though, was sniffling and blinking slowly, just like any normal human kid who had exhausted himself with a tantrum. He laid his head back on Dean’s shoulder, gave a final sighing cry, and fell asleep.

The tentacles shivered and relaxed. Several drooped, loosening their death grip around his ribs. Dean was reminded of the way a sleeping kid’s limbs would dangle limply when they slept, secure in the arms of a trusted adult.

He didn’t think human babies purred, though.


End file.
